Drifting
by Bekquai
Summary: Tatsumi examines his relationship with Tsuzuki.


Author's Note: Even thought I am a dyed-in-the-wool Hisoka'n'Tsuzuki shipper, I do have a soft spot for Tatsumi. Really, he and Tsuzuki would make a wonderful couple, but they are so very angsty. Tatsumi just doesn't _~do~_ fluff. But I feel for the guy, and thus this ficcy came to me. Please keep in mind that I have NO idea what Tatsumi's backstory is.  
  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Yami no Matsuei.  
  
  
  
  
Drifting  
  
  
  
  
Tatsumi was never scared of the dark, even as a child. He liked to keep all the lights off at night and play shadow puppets on the wall in the moonlight. He was very good at them. It wasn't until he was dead and buried that he learned why.  
  
Tatsumi was very good with numbers, too. He liked them to be very neat and lined up on a page, liked them to add and subtract and divide and multiply in logical and coherent fashion. He could decipher difficult calculus and trigonometry problems as easily as balance the budget, and he liked knowing that he was that capable. He liked knowing his own abilities.  
  
When they'd met, Tsuzuki was like a raft adrift in strange waters. He was disorganized and took everything said to him to heart. And he had such great potential, all that power and feeling and intelligence at his command. Yet he disguised it all, smiled foolishly and slacked off. Tatsumi couldn't understand that someone could so willfully ignore all their potential, acknowledging it only when it was absolutely necessary.  
  
It was hard to work with him, hard to make him understand what it was that he was doing incorrectly. It was harder to forget violet eyes brimming with tears when a child had to die, the touches that sometimes lingered just a few seconds too long, the rare true smile.  
  
Tatsumi remembered when he finally confronted Tsuzuki about the obvious tension between them. It did not go as planned. Tatsumi had merely been trying to scold Tsuzuki into working by the book. He certainly hadn't meant to draw Tsuzuki into a yelling match that culminated in the most passionate kiss Tatsumi had ever experienced. One thing led to another, and Tatsumi sometimes still had dreams about those times when he could be gentle and hold Tsuzuki closely.  
  
In the dreams, Tsuzuki told him he loved him.  
  
In the dreams, Tatsumi could say it back.  
  
Because he had never been able to. He knew he _~did~_, it was just... One of the reasons he'd never told Tsuzuki how he felt is because he doubted his ability to give Tsuzuki what he wanted. The ability to be what Tsuzuki needed. Tsuzuki needed an anchor to hold him fast against the storms. Needed kindness and understanding and affection and a million other things that Tatsumi had never quite taken to as easily as mathematics and making shadows solid enough to kill. He knew he'd never be strong enough - no, it wasn't a question of strength. Tatsumi was nothing if not strong. He possessed the strength to hold Tsuzuki down and keep him grounded.  
  
It was simply that he could never truly _~understand~_ the pain he saw in Tsuzuki's beautiful eyes. How could he save the man from something he didn't understand? Something that didn't line up neatly and was never logical and barely coherent to begin with? And even though he tried to be open and loving, he was inherently aloof and cool, to the point of being apathetic at times. He didn't know how to stop Tsuzuki's tears; he froze every time he saw them. It was somewhat shocking to his sensibilities that a grown man should weep so openly.  
  
He'd broken Tsuzuki's heart when he asked for another partner. He knew he had. It made his own heart ache in the earlier hours of the morning, even after all the years passed. But time does heal, because Tsuzuki became able to speak to him, and eventually became friendly towards him again. Tatsumi was careful that it never again risked becoming more than that, even though there still were furtive glances and not-quite-casual touches on both sides.  
  
There was even occasional sex if Tsuzuki was upset and needed the reassurance of another human body next to him, around him, in him. To make sure he was still human, still able to feel something other than the darkness gnawing on his very soul. And though he was plagued with guilt afterwards, Tatsumi still obliged. It truly was the least he could do.  
  
He remembered those nights with odd pangs of melancholy and choking regret. He almost still felt the desperation in Tsuzuki's clutching fingertips, almost still smelled the scent of Tsuzuki's hair and sweat mixed with the heady aroma of sex itself. It was as if he thought hard enough, he could make it totally unreal, a figment of his imagination. It really helped matters none, and probably made them worse. Tsuzuki cried afterwards sometimes, and Tatsumi would hold him awkwardly, silently praying the moment would end while memorizing the feel of Tsuzuki's soft hair against his cheek.  
  
Those nights were few and far between, though, and Tatsumi knew such night were not really good for Tsuzuki. Every year that went by left Tsuzuki a little sadder, his smiles a little more false. Tatsumi did not know how to help.  
  
Of course, then Kurosaki Hisoka came along. Tatsumi was ultimately the one who made the decision to pair him with Tsuzuki. Of course, he hadn't really done so out of any intuition. He hadn't even met the boy at the time, basing everything off the file the Gushoshin had given him. Who could possibly be more understanding than an empath? If understanding was what Tsuzuki needed, the boy would be able to provide it, willingly or not. It was a logical assumption.  
  
However, after the new pair's first few disastrous meetings and Kurosaki-kun's repeated rejection of Tsuzuki, Tatsumi started to doubt the wisdom of his decision. He had overlooked some variables before, such as Kurosaki-kun's disposition and Tsuzuki's vulnerability. But perhaps there were even more variables than that, because Kurosaki-kun never demanded a switch as so many of Tsuzuki's partners had done before.  
  
Tatsumi gained insight as to what these variables were when he was called to rescue them both from the sinking Queen Camellia. As he flew the helicopter, he couldn't help but notice the way they clung to each other. He also saw the way Tsuzuki's eyes shifted subtly as he held his diminutive partner. He knew that look. It was the same one Tsuzuki had given him back then...  
  
Tatsumi expected to be jealous. He thought he was not above that. However, he felt none of the stinging hurt he knew to be jealousy. Instead, it turned out that if he knew Tsuzuki would finally have a chance to be happy, he'd be happy for him. With him. But knowing that Tsuzuki was falling for Kurosaki-kun, who had never been anything but cruel to him, it made Tatsumi sick at heart. Tsuzuki was going to be hurt again.  
  
Perhaps Tsuzuki expected that, too. After all, it took the better half of two years for him to even begin to show signs of lovesickness. He must have tried to avoid it, ignore it, deny it, only to find it impossible to deny. And Kurosaki-kun, for all his talents, seemed on all accounts oblivious. Yet he rose between Tsuzuki and Tatsumi as surely and insurmountably as a mountain, casting long shadows to hide Tatsumi's presence.  
  
It was around this time that Tatsumi decided to use those very shadows to his advantage. He would not see Tsuzuki hurt again, not if he could prevent it. He tailed Tsuzuki every moment he could spare, shadowing him quite literally.  
  
So he knew that when there was no one else watching, Kurosaki-kun was no where near are callous as he would have himself appear. Tatsumi was surprised even further when Kurosaki-kun asked that he help take care of Tsuzuki. The boy's tone of genuine gruff worry gave Tatsumi hope that maybe Tsuzuki's love wasn't doomed.  
  
In the shadow realms, voices travel quite well. When the black fires tried to consume everything, he heard everything Kurosaki-kun had to say. Perhaps even what was unspoken between the two, the words that would frighten them both. The words that would get said sooner or later anyway.  
  
As he pulled them into the shadows, for the first time in several decades Tatsumi felt actual tears prick his own eyes.  
  
For nights after the incident in Kyoto, Tatsumi woke up remembering kisses ghosting down his neck and violet eyes dark with need. Once, only once, he was weak and traveled through the shadows to Tsuzuki's bedroom intent on finding... Well, finding something. He didn't quite expect solace. He didn't even really expect Tsuzuki to be awake. But he was. And he wasn't alone.  
  
He and Kurosaki, one above the over on the bed, tangled and panting, Kurosaki whispering "Tsuzuki," and Tsuzuki nearly moaning "Hisoka." Both of them pale and naked, heartwrenchingly beautiful in the moonlight. Tatsumi was unable to move for a few eternal seconds, transfixed by the intimate confirmation of his loss. He left without a sound, not that he thought either would notice.  
  
He got very drunk that night, and the next day he cut funding indiscriminately by way of revenge.  
  
Then Tsuzuki came in and pleaded. The cuts were lessened. Some things just don't change.  
  
He'd lost Tsuzuki. He'd always meant to lose him, that had been his purpose. But now it was as if _~he~_ was the one adrift, now that he no longer had to worry about Tsuzuki night and day. He was lost without something to protect. Now that he'd handed Tsuzuki over to someone else, he wondered if maybe Tsuzuki hadn't been what was holding _~him~_ down.   
  
  
  
  
END  
  
  
  
  
Feedback is highly appreciated, ya know. ^_^  
  
  
  



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